Chesterton Knew The Importance of Ecumenical Dialogue

Chesterton Knew The Importance of Ecumenical Dialogue

Friday 30 July 2010

Government, Bishops, Priests or Faithful to Blame for Poor Papal Turnout?


Much has been written about the organisation of the Holy Father's visit to England. I have heard that the Government wants to limit the number of the faithful attending, to make it look like a flop. I have heard the same said of the Bishop's Conference of Wales & England. I have heard of Priests at the Altar asking for names of people who wanted to go, but putting some off with a lot of negativity. "It will be a very long day...there will be no seats.....there will be a long walk as part of the day at Hyde Park.....there will be a long coach journey to Birmingham....bla, bla, bla". Rumours that there would be no toilets were thrown in for good measure!

All of this may be true, but so what! A convert, Cardinal Newman, to the One True Faith is going to be Beatified by Christ's Vicar on Earth here in England(Birmingham 19th September). At Hyde Park, London 18th September, the successor of Saint Peter will lead over 80,000 Catholics in Adoring the Real Presence of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament. So as Henry Root would say, "Here's a pound [ten for Hyde Park] let's go!"

If your Parish has run out of tickets, phone around other local Parishes and ask them if they have any. I was talking to a good Priest earlier this week who was saddened by the small number of tickets he has been asked for by his Parishioners. If you cannot get a ticket, come to Hyde Park anyway! I was very heartened to receive an email today from Fr Armand de Malleray, FSSP who will be leading 50 of the faithful to the Vigil with the Pope, but went on to say, there "surely could and should be many more coming than 50. Even if this means that we pray the Rosary in an other area of Hyde Park (i.e. outside the official registration zone), it will be very significant to be a very very large crowd there. In some years, we want to be able to look back on this First Papal State visit in Great Britain and say: ‘I attended’. Clergy from the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter will accompany the ‘Non registered’ group. Other clergy welcome. Persons under 18 years of age are welcome under the responsibility of their parents. Specific meeting location will be communicated later on."

So there you have it, ticket or not every Catholic to Hyde Park 1pm-9pm Saturday 18th September 2010.

4 comments:

Left-footer said...

Unfortunately I can't be there, as I shall be working (in Poland).
I pray that the turnout will be magnificent.
As to the playing down of the visit by the Catholic Church in UK, I am unable to form an unclouded opinion. I do accept, however that there is a considerable lack of enthusiasm for Popes among some of the older clergy. My UK Parish Priest, when I challenged him on Papal infallibility, said that the "Church needs to do some work on what this means in practice". Popppycock!
In Poland, the Pope is a figure of great affection, no, love, and respect.

Left-footer said...

Unfortunately I can't be there, as I shall be working (in Poland).
I pray that the turnout will be magnificent.
As to the playing down of the visit by the Catholic Church in UK, I am unable to form an unclouded opinion. I do accept, however that there is a considerable lack of enthusiasm for Popes among some of the older clergy. My UK Parish Priest, when I challenged him on Papal infallibility, said that the "Church needs to do some work on what this means in practice". Popppycock!
In Poland, the Pope is a figure of great affection, no, love, and respect.

Loyal catholics attend the real event said...

Well I would think that the FSSP lot would do better to attend the actual event rather than starting a paralell event. I'm sure they could get tickets if they tried.

Ecumenical Diablogger said...

Just to say that '50 of the faithful [going] to the Vigil with the Pope' with the FSSP do have tickets and will be at the 'real event'. Those going to the other part of Hyde Park are those without tickets, but as loyal Catholics will be there to support the Holy Father. As there are only 80,000-100,000 tickets, many will not have tickets, but they should go anyway. We don't want any 'paralell events', ie, some catholics watching television at home, while the rest of us are at Hyde Park. Let's Fill Hyde Park, inside & outside the Vigil!